Saturday, December 1, 2018

Wait for it. . . Year C, Advent 1, Luke 21.25-36,

Grace to you and
peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.Amen

The world in
which we live is warming.Global warming
is not some future event that might one day happen.It is happening now and is evident in
concrete and measurable effects.

Here’s a bit of information
from NASA’s website:

“Global climate change has already had
observable effects on the environment. Glaciers have shrunk, ice on rivers and
lakes is breaking up earlier, plant and animal ranges have shifted and trees
are flowering sooner.

Effects that scientists had predicted in the
past would result from global climate change are now occurring: loss of sea
ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves.

Scientists have high confidence that global
temperatures will continue to rise for decades to come, largely due to
greenhouse gases produced by human activities. The Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), which includes more than 1,300 scientists from the
United States and other countries, forecasts a temperature rise of 2.5 to 10
degrees Fahrenheit over the next century.

According to the IPCC, the extent of climate
change effects on individual regions will vary over time and with the ability
of different societal and environmental systems to mitigate or adapt to change.

The IPCC predicts that increases in global
mean temperature of less than 1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 3 degrees
Celsius) above 1990 levels will produce beneficial impacts in some regions and
harmful ones in others. Net annual costs will increase over time as global
temperatures increase.

"Taken as a whole," the IPCC
states, "the range of published evidence indicates that the net damage
costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over
time."

Some of the
specific effects of this warming are:

·Rising temperatures

·Longer growing seasons

·Changes in precipitation patterns

·Droughts and heat waves

·Stronger and more intense hurricanes and other
storm systems

·Rising sea levels

·Melting of the polar sea ice

Here in the Northwest we can expect ”changes in the timing of streamflow reduce water supplies for
competing demands. Sea level rise, erosion, inundation, risks to infrastructure
and increasing ocean acidity pose major threats. Increasing wildfire, insect
outbreaks and tree diseases are causing widespread tree die-off.”

A couple of personal observations:

If you visit
Glacier Park, one of the things you’ll immediately become aware of is that the
glaciers are themselves almost gone.

My own cousin is
feeling the effects of global warming.He farms inNortheast South
Dakota, where the rising levels of the lakes has claimed over 1/3 of his farm, which is now underwater.

And finally, all
you have to do is watch the high water level of the spring runoff just down the
road on the Spokane River.Thirty years
ago the high level of spring runoff occurred well into June.Now that is happening earlier and earlier.

There will be signs in the sun, the moon,
and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring
of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what
is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Now, just when we
are duly uneasy and concerned about the effects of global warming, there is
another potential disaster on the horizon:

People who are
into apocalyptic predictions of the future point to the Yellowstone super volcano.A massive eruption such as has occurred about
every 600,000 years could bring about a volcanic winter, where the ash shades the earth from the sun, causing in the worst case scenario a total failure of
the crops worldwide.This, these
futurists muse, could be the end of humanity.

What doesn’t make
the tabloids, is that the chances of this happening are very remote, and may
never occur again.

Feeling good
about the world and life in general, yet?

What do we make
of Jesus’ ominous warnings of the tribulations that are to come?

Well, for
starters, the good news is that what Jesus was likely warning his disciples
about occurred shortly after his words of warning were uttered.

“Truly I tell
you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place.”

What indeed
happened just forty years after Jesus was that the Romans destroyed the temple,
and then in another forty years, thoroughly destroyed the nation of
Israel.Israel remained scattered across
the face of the earth until the reestablishment of the nation of Israel in
1947.

So, take a deep
breath, and a sigh of relief.Jesus wasn’t
predicting the end of the world, but rather the end of the nation of
Israel.That happened.Old news.

There’s another
thing to give us hope when faced with the dire warnings and predictions of
cataclysmic events on the horizon.

Jesus says, “Now when these things begin to take place,
stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

These words
remind me of the Exodus and Moses’ words to Israel.

They had just
left Egypt and were at the shores of the Red Sea.Pharaoh’s heart had been hardened and he sent
his chariots after the Israelites.

And so there they
were, caught between the Red Sea on the one side, and the advancing armies of
Egypt on the other side.They feared
their death was imminent.

Moses said:"Do
not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will
accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never
see again. The Lord will fight for you,
and you have only to keep still."

One of the major
themes throughout the Bible is “deliverance”, and God’s saving his people from
one calamity after another.

It’s like a good
news/bad news joke, though it is no joke.

The good news is
that God will deliver you.

The bad news is
that there will be difficult times ahead as we await that deliverance.

It’s like when a
pregnant woman shows up at the hospital in labor.The good news is that the pain she is
experiencing will soon be over.The bad
news is that it is going to get worse before it gets better.

You see the thing
about this theme of deliverance in the Bible is that God does not promise to
spare us the suffering that is an inevitable part of this life, but rather that
he will bring us through the suffering to a new day.

We will face many
struggles in this life, some great and some small.

Some of these
struggles will be our own personal struggles, some will affect our families,
and some will affect the community as a whole.

There may even be
epic times of great difficulty that impact the whole of humanity, like world
wars, or famine, or diseases and the like that render us all vulnerable.

Sometimes the
difficulties we face will be of our own making.

When that is the
case, it is possible that what we have done we can also undo, but not
always.

At other times we
will face suffering and crises that come upon us through no fault of our own
whatsoever.

There is innocent
suffering in this world.

But the promise
remains the same.

“Now when these things begin to take place,
stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

The one issue
that all of us will experience in due time, is our own deaths.

Sometimes that
will come without warning.

At other times
the signs that the end for us is coming will be clear and foreboding.It may be a cancer diagnosis, or heart
disease, or Alzheimer’s, or any number of other things that affects our mortality.

No one is spared
that day.

An old saying is “Everybody
has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my
case.”

The bad news is
that there are no exceptions.

But there is
redemption and new life.

In Romans 8 Paul
writes:

I consider that the sufferings of this
present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.
19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children
of God; 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but
by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself
will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the
glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been
groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we
ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we
wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

Labor pains.Suffering.Redemption.

That’s the cycle
of life.

One final
thought.One of the deepest regrets that
I have regarding the pastoral care I offered over the course of my career was
the counsel I offered to my youth director and her husband.

They were in my
office one day, alarmed because Ben was losing his strength in one leg.I tried to reassure them that most often we
fear the worst, and yet it ends up being not nearly as bad as we fear.

It turned out
that Ben had a glioblastoma, a fast growing brain tumor, and in a few short
weeks he died.Yeah, it was that bad.

Sometimes the signs
we see are indeed warning signs of a great and looming tragedy.Denying that possibility is not where we find
ultimate hope.

Our hope is in
the redemption that Christ has promised.

We will not face
the worst that life has to offer, or death itself, alone.

But the
sufferings that we will endure are but birth pangs, and the hope that we have
is of the new life that is ours in Christ Jesus.